This invention relates to the routing of optical fibers and, more particularly, to an improved optical fiber distribution panel assembly.
Modern high speed telecommunications equipment increasingly relies on the use of optical fibers as a transmission medium, since it provides the bandwidth needed by customers. However, the optical fibers must be handled with care to prevent optical losses. When an optical fiber is bent, micro-cracking may occur and damage the expensive and fragile fiber. It is therefore important to control the bend radius of the fiber. As a general rule, fiber handling and packaging is much more restrictive than wire handling and packaging.
As customers demand higher bandwidth, communications service providers are interested in purchasing the most compact system that takes up the least amount of floor space. Accordingly, increasingly higher fiber counts are packaged into a limited space. To complicate matters, optical fiber organization always involves slack management for two reasons:
1. Fiber termination can yield length variation that is dictated by its manufacturing tolerances; and
2. It is desirable to have equal length fiber cables used for multiple equipment module locations.
In a particular optical cross connect system, it is needed to package 256 input and 256 output fibers in an extremely limited space. These fibers exit an optical switching module and must be distributed onto a fiber patch panel. An innovative solution is needed to manage the fiber slack and bend radius as discussed above. In addition, there must be a way to access the inside of the panel to be able to debug and replace internal components as needed. Further, the intrinsic segregation of the input and output fibers as they exit the optical switching module does not lend itself to easy field installation. The field installation would be eased with an interleaving of input and output fibers so that the input/output fibers from a particular pack can be in one group and in close proximity on the panel for easy access. It would therefore be desirable to have an optical fiber distribution panel which satisfies all of the aforedescribed needs.
According to the present invention, there is provided an optical fiber distribution panel assembly comprising a base member and a first panel hingedly secured to the base member about a horizontal axis. The first panel has a pair of lateral edges extending upwardly from the horizontal axis and is formed with a plurality of apertures each adapted to receive a respective fiber connector block. Each of a pair of fiber channels is mounted to a respective one of the lateral edges of the first panel. A second panel is secured to the pair of fiber channels and a plurality of fiber takeup saddles are mounted to the second panel.